Palestinian terrorist eludes U.S. in Iraq

updated 4:15 p.m. ET April 5, 2009

NEW YORK - As Pan Am Flight 830 descended toward Honolulu and passengers finished their breakfast, a blinding burst of light washed over them.

And then, "BOOM!"

The 747 shuddered violently. Confusion erupted as the airliner nose-dived. Screams and thick smoke filled the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped.

In the rear of the plane, 16-year-old Toru Ozawa lay on his back in the aisle. His lower abdomen had been ripped open, his intestines seeping out. The explosion had also sheered off one of his legs. He called out for his mother and father; they watched in horror as he died.

The Aug. 11, 1982, explosion was no accident. Ozawa was murdered — killed by a sophisticated bomb, one of many that spread like a virus around the world in the 1980s, killing and injuring scores in more than two dozen terrorist attacks.

The man behind them: Abu Ibrahim, who controlled a web of dangerous operatives while living in Baghdad under the protection of Saddam Hussein.

Ibrahim has elused coalition forces
Long forgotten and even presumed dead by some, Ibrahim is very much alive, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ibrahim had managed to elude coalition forces — possibly while aiding the Sunni insurgency — before he recently crossed into Syria, federal law enforcement and former CIA officials believe.

The FBI is eager to catch Ibrahim, whose real name is Husayn al-Umari, and has ramped up efforts to find him, releasing an age-enhanced sketch of Ibrahim to the AP, the first known picture of him ever made public.

But time is running out.

As American forces draw down in Iraq, the FBI worries that locating Ibrahim could become harder if he slips back into the country. And a key witness who could testify against Ibrahim will be released from a Colorado prison in four years — if not sooner.

"This is an unfinished war on terrorism and he's part of that war," said Bob Baer, a former top CIA agent who worked clandestinely in the Middle East. "He was the most capable and the most dangerous bomb maker in the world barring none during my time as a CIA officer. He's a man who could open up a lot of old cases."

Mysterious puppet master
The 73-year-old Ibrahim is an almost mythological figure in terrorism, a sort of mysterious puppet master — always out of reach, in the background, pulling strings.

Pictures of him are rare. The Palestinian didn't make tape recordings and broadcast his anti-Israel, anti-American manifesto to the world. He let his bombs do the talking and taught a group of proteges his formidable skills — ones he acquired studying chemical and electrical engineering and later learned from KGB.

He's been described as a "genius." The "grandfather of bomb makers." A "Michelangelo." Or as one former Pentagon official said, "Dr. Frankenstein."

His infamous career stretches back decades. He has been linked to several terrorist organizations, including Black September and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

But it wasn't until Ibrahim broke away from the PFLP in 1979 and formed his own outfit called "15 May" that he began forging his reputation as a master bomb maker, attracting the attention of foreign intelligence services around the globe.

Named after the date on which Israel was founded, Ibrahim based 15 May in Baghdad and began perfecting his unique bombs. He experimented widely, devising a particularly nasty bomb that involved filling the cooling pipes of a refrigerated truck with liquid explosives.

But his piece de resistance was something totally different and on a much smaller scale. At his little workshop, he developed a blend of plastic explosives that he lined in suitcases or bags that used a delayed-timing device called an "e-cell."

Together, this became his signature as a bomb maker.

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